Smoke detectors are mandatory safety devices for residential, commercial and industrial buildings. In the first years following their introduction, residential owners and apartment dwellers used to install one battery-operated stand-alone smoke detector per home or apartment. Although better than no smoke detector, the installation of one battery-operated stand-alone smoke detector did not suffice to address on its own the problems resulting from residential fires.
The Life Safety Code® from the National Fire Protection Association 101 (NFPA 101) defines the standard for fire protection in homes. The standard has evolved over the years, and now requires that every new home be equipped with one smoke detector in every bedroom, hallway and floor. Furthermore, the standard requires that at least one smoke detector be connected to AC power, and that the smoke detectors be interconnected, so that if one smoke detector goes off, that all the smoke detectors interconnected therewith go off as well.
NFPA 101 defines the number, types and location of smoke detectors to be installed. Those guidelines include the installation of at least one AC powered smoke detector. UL/ULC™ is the organization that defines the standards and provides certification to manufacturers of electrically powered products, including smoke detectors. Since 1988, UL/ULC™ has established that all electrically powered products should be provided with a three-wire connection: a feed, a neutral and a data wire. Installation of three-wire connection electrical products, including smoke detectors, must be performed by an electrician. Thus, adding one or several UL/ULC™ smoke detectors require the services of an electrician, prohibiting further the installation of such smoke detectors.
In addition to NFPA 101's established standard and UL/ULC™ standards, Public Safety Services (PSS) recommends connecting one of the interconnected smoke detectors to a UL/ULC™ certified monitoring central station. Monitoring central stations are usually private organisations specialising in receiving and monitoring burglar and fire alarms. Properly staffed to support continuous 24 hours a day, seven days a week monitoring, these monitoring central stations receive and manage each alarm received. For example, when a smoke detector alarm signal is received at the monitoring central station, an operator of the monitoring central station may first attempt to call the home from which the smoke detector alarm signal is received, before calling a city fire department or emergency services such as 9-1-1.
However, connecting one smoke detector to a UL/ULC™ certified monitoring central station requires the addition of: a security system, 12-24 Vdc smoke detectors or one 12-24 Vdc smoke detector wirelessly interconnected with battery-operated smoke detector(s). Thus, connecting one of the interconnected smoke detectors to the UL/ULC™ certified monitoring central station is quite expensive, time consuming, and requires the further installation of a security system panel and keypad.
As NFPA 101 requires that smoke detectors be replaced every 10 years, home owners who connect their smoke detectors with one of the monitoring central stations has to replace the smoke detectors not connected to the monitoring central station as well as the smoke detector(s) connected to the monitoring central station, thus increasing the costs of such replacements.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,875,631 describes a two-wire smoke detector that is AC powered, includes batteries for power outages period, and includes a Wi-Fi communication unit. However, the two-wire electrical connection of this two-wire smoke detector lacks the mandatory requirement of third wire interconnection set by UL/ULC™, and therefore cannot be used to replace existing electrically powered smoke detectors in homes built after 1988. Furthermore, the two-wire smoke detector described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,875,631 relies on a proprietary electrical power connector that is incompatible with existing connectors and requires the replacement of the existing power harnesses by a qualified electrician. Moreover, the Wi-Fi communication unit described sends text messages to a smartphone and cannot be connected a UL/ULC™ monitoring central station. Furthermore, as 49% of home fires involved an electrical failure, and most Wi-Fi users do not protect their Internet equipment with a battery back-up, the Wi-Fi connection proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 9,875,631 is not sufficiently reliable and does not alleviate many of the current problems.
BRK™ offers through its SA520B series a wireless alarm-bridge electrically powered detector including a wire and wireless interconnection. However, the SA520B series is not adapted for transmitting alarms to a UL/ULC™ monitoring central station.
There is therefore a need for an AC three-wire powered and interconnectable detector, adapted to communicate with a UL/ULC™ certified monitoring central station.
There is also a need for a detector which is compatible with current electric power harnesses, therefore alleviating the need to hire an electrician for installation.
There is also a need for a detector which reduces the number of false alarms.